Are we being insensitive?

Hey, thanks again for sending in your questions related to our recent sermons.

As you know, we’re in a series where we’re talking about how to share Christ in the context

of conversations that we are already having.

So far, we have talked about power and the vulnerable.

Left on the schedule coming up is purpose, justice, friendship, and self-worth.

So the question comes in this week, are there certain contexts in which it would be insensitive

to share Christ?

Or can you insensitively share Christ?

Or can this approach be insensitive?

And of course, the answer is yes.

Obviously, you could do anything in an insensitive way.

You could tell somebody happy birthday in a way that would upset them.

And so we don’t want to do that with this approach to evangelism or any approach to

anything.

You can’t forget about the rest of the commands of Scripture, right?

We’re supposed to weep with those who weep, mourn with those who mourn.

We can’t just toss that out the window because we’re doing something else.

So as we’ve said all along, this approach to evangelism is with your friends, neighbors,

colleagues, people with whom you already have a relationship, people with whom they know

that you care about them.

You’re in close friendship with them.

And if they are really upset about something, that is not the time to just jump in with

who Jesus is, unless you see a way to do that that would be sensitive.

But on the issue of power, for instance, if somebody’s really upset about maybe their

boss abusing power, giving them all these hours, taking credit for their work, praising

other people and condemning them, even though their work is really good and they just feel

weighed down by their boss, you don’t jump in and say, well, let me tell you about somebody

who wasn’t like that.

Of course, that would be insensitive.

We shouldn’t do that.

And so as we’ve said all along, these are not like just quick snap responses to somebody.

This is a conversation.

This is likely many conversations.

It’s somebody that you’re in a relationship with.

This is not like drive-by evangelism, as we have said.

It’s not just, let me toss an answer to you and I’ll just keep going.

That’s not what this is.

This is real, authentic, genuine conversations with people that we’re in a relationship with,

that we thoughtfully share a better story.

And so it needs to sound better.

It needs to feel better to the people who hear it from us.

And so obviously you could be insensitive, but if you are, then you’ve missed what we’ve

been talking about all along, that this is people that you care about.

If you care about somebody, you’re probably not going to be insensitive to them.

And this is not just one conversation.

This is not just a quick answer, and you can’t just forget everything else that Scripture

instructs us to do.

Now in our sermons or even in our videos, we can’t, just with time limitations, we have

to condense conversations to, you know, this person says this, we say this, right?

But in real life, they’re much more organic.

They’re much slower.

You can’t jump to the end of the story without going through all the steps of the story along

the way.

So we hope that’s helpful.

We hope all of you, as you are sharing Christ, that you are doing it in a sensitive way with

care and compassion for the people that you are sharing with.

So thanks for sending in the question. For any of us that that needs to be a corrective,

I pray that it does.

We’ll see you next time.